Charlie Wilson’s War [Media Notes 91] Looking for the irony?

I’m pretty sure that I saw Charlie Wilson’s War when it came out in 2007. But I have no idea what I thought about it. I still don’t, though I watched it the other day on Netflix. It was entertaining enough and fraught with ironies. But still...

The basics: It was directed by Mike Nichols, apparently his last. Tom Hanks is Congressman Charlie Wilson, a patriotic womanizing not-quite-a-good-old-boy from Texas. Julie Roberts is, Joanne Herring, the sixth wealthiest woman in Texas, Christian, patriotic, and passionately interested in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Politics has brought them together. She convinces him to fund a covert war against the Russians. Gust Avrakotos, a CIA operative, plans the operation. Over the course of the 1980s – the film is based, somewhat problematically according to the Wikipedia entry, on real event – the war eventually succeeds. The Soviets leave, metaphorical tail between virtual legs.

We know, however, that things didn’t work out too well to Afghanistan. And I don’t just mean we-in-2023, I mean we-in-2007, when the movie came out. Back then, six years after 9/11, we knew the things didn’t work out. There are hints within the film as well. Even as they’re drinking to victory, the CIA guy, Gust Avrakotos, is telling the Congressman, Charlie Wilson: “I’m gonna’ hand you a oode word classified NIE right now and it’s gonna’ tell you that the crazies have started rolling into Kandehar like it’s a fucking bathtub drain.” At the same time we hear and airplane overhead. Oh yes, the film knows what happened afterward, and wants us to know that it knows.

But still.

According to the Wikipedia article, the original screen play ended with a scene of the 9/11 World Trade Center bombings. Tom Hanks wasn’t comfortable with that, so a different ending was devised, one where Charlie Wilson was given an award by “the clandestine services” (the phrase used in the film) for his service, the first “civilian” to be so honored. The film opened with that ceremony as well.

But that ceremonial triumph wasn’t the last thing in the film. Just before the end credits roll the screen goes blank and we see this:

“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world...and then we fucked up the end game.” – Charlie Wilson

That’s the last word.

But still, so what? There’s a running story about a Zen master that points beyond the events depicted in the film, and we see sex and war business constantly juxtaposed and intermingled. There’s irony galore.

But the film doesn’t live up to its own material. In fact, it seems at odds with its material. The basic story is one of military and political triumph, with some sexual hijinks on the side. The hints about the “crazies,” which I assume is a reference to the Taliban, and fucking up the endgame, are there, not to indicate anything about historical complexity, but simply to telegraph to the audience: “We know! We know!” We know what?